Duarte Daughter On Tape: I Sympathize With Rebels

November 7, 1985|By Dallas Morning News

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR — President Jose Napoleon Duarte's eldest daughter, kidnapped by leftist rebels for 44 days, says in a tape recording made before her release that ''my opinion of the rebels has changed.''

''Now I have lived with them, I have seen how they live, the union between them, their solidarity, and I have talked with them. They fight with conviction and high morale,'' says Ines Guadalupe Duarte Duran in the tape recording, which was made available by the rebels to the Dallas Morning News.

Duarte said last week that his daughter is being treated by psychologists for the Stockholm syndrome, in which kidnapping victims become sympathetic to the views of their captors.

Duarte Duran says on the tape recording that ''my idea of the people in the Farabundo Marti Front, or in any of the leftist fronts, is completely different.''

A close family friend confirmed that the voice on the cassette, reportedly taped by the rebels just before Duarte Duran's release, was that of the president's daughter.

President Duarte said during a visit to Washington last week that his 35- year-old daughter had been affected mentally by her ordeal and that she and members of their family were receiving therapy to counteract symptoms of Stockholm syndrome.

The guerrillas ''tried to destroy the bond between her and myself, but they did not achieve this,'' Duarte said. He said his daughter was ''returning to normality little by little.''

Duarte Duran has made no public statements about her captivity since her release Oct. 24.

A government spokesman did not dispute that the statements were Duarte Duran's.